The Functioning Alcoholic Who Financed Thirty Years of Drinking – Hank J.

I've listened to his tape a couple of times, and it seems to me that what we have visiting with us tonight from Palmdale, California, is a walking, talking version of the big book. Hank J. Hi everybody, my name is Hank Johnson, and I'm an alcoholic. and I'm very glad to be here tonight and I met a few people that I know and I didn't have to flee the scene or anything I could just stay here anyhow and that's a change in my life I started drinking when I was 18 years old I went into a bar in Los Angeles and they served me and in California you're supposed to be 21 and I passed for 21 they didn't even ask for my ID and immediately I became a man And that's what I wanted to be. A man can buy a drink over a bar without being asked for identification. And I graduated right then and there. I never had to learn another thing the rest of my life. What else is there to learn? I could play the jukebox over in the corner just as good as the rest of the guys. In fact, I thought my selection of songs were a little bit better than most. And I sat at the bar and looked myself in the mirror, and I got better looking after each drink. And I just went back every opportunity I had from then on. And from then On, I drank all the time. And I had done a little bit of behind-the-gym drinking in high school, you know. But this was big time. And I Just Went Back There Every Opportunity I Had From Then On. And I met my wife in a bar. Where do you meet girls? It's the only place I ever knew. And we got married and moved out to West Covina, a little town outside of Los Angeles. you know, a little track house out there. And the payments were $56 a month. That included taxes and interest and the whole shot. No down payment, naturally. And, you know I had a hard time coming up with that $56. Those payments had come due and I had an hard time coming up with it because you see I used my money to drink with. And I figured well I'll double up next month. And now, you Know next month had come along 112 dollars is due on that house how am i going to come up with that kind of money and you know i wouldn't pay somebody else and somehow i'd make the payment and geez we almost lost that house several times and we finally sold it and moved in with my father for free and uh if anybody would have asked me hank what is your problem i would have said money money's my problem you know if only you know i don't know how i got involved in this type of work I do, it doesn't pay enough. She'd go to work or something and help me. But money is my problem. When we moved out there, it turned out my wife was pregnant. And I didn't start saving for that baby until about a week before the baby was due. And you know, I just couldn't come up with the money. So I went to the beneficial finance company and I borrowed the money to pay the hospital and medical expenses. And when my son finally turned 25 and I finally got sober on program of AA, I finally Got Beneficial paid off. I always had a crisis in my life. Every time I'd almost get them paid off, then something would happen and I have to consolidate all my bills again, you know. And sometimes I had a Pacific finance company going too, and sometimes a bank loan, sometimes all three at the same time. And you know I total up my bills at the end of the year for interest, you know about this time of year, and I try to figure out what in hell have I bought? What am I making all these payments on? I'm paying out all this interest and not making all These payments, I'm not buying anything. You know they don't finance hundred dollar cars, I'll tell you that. And I finally figured them out after I was sober. What I did is I financed 30 years of drinking. Every time I took a drink, I paid an extra 10 cents or so in interest to beneficial finance. And that's been a change. I don't know those guys anymore, thank God. And my drunk-a-log is really the most boring story you've probably ever heard in your life. I hear real exciting stuff from this podium at times. God, guys get up here and they talk about how they went into a bar and punched everybody out in a bar and the cops came and they punched the cops out and they get drug off to jail and they get thrown in the cell and they walk over to the bunk they want and pull the guy out of the bunk and punch him out too and you know now that's drinking man that is exciting drinking you know I heard a guy talk one time and he was telling about driving through a tunnel 65 miles an hour and then decided to make a U-turn and you know really exciting stuff you know and I kind of wish I could have done something like that so I could've had a story to tell you tonight but you know all I ever did was just kind of sat around and drank you know I used to play phonograph records and watch television and read books once in a while you know nothing heavy just the condensed versions in the Reader's Digest and I had a lot of plans. I was going to do a lot of stuff, I just never got around to it, frankly, you know. I heard a speaker in Palm Springs, California talk one time, an Alateen speaker, and his mother used to keep telling him, you know, why do you procrastinate so much? And he finally asked her, he says, well, what does that mean? What does procrastinating mean? And she says, why don't you look it up in the dictionary? And he says oh, I will later. now that I identify with that kid you know I you know I postponed living I postpone it till next June or till I get a thousand dollars or when the kids are all grown or whatever I just kind of sat around and drank 30 years of my life away and never did a damn thing but I sure meant to and I sure did in my fantasies and my wife used to get excited every once in a while stir up trouble and excitement, she'd kick me out of the house. I'd just sit in there innocently and she'd kicked me out. And I never knew why, you know, but she said go. And it never occurred to me to argue with her. She said go, I just left, that's all. I never moved very far away from home, I just moved down the block about, you Know, just half a block away or something so I could work my way back in. And I was in and out, back and forth, and she divorced me three times. And the last time she divorced Me, I wound up in Hermosa Beach, California, half a block from the ocean. And God, I liked that idea, you know. I was going to go down there and run every morning along the water, you Know. As far as I know, the water was down there. I just never got around to getting getting it. Instead, you know, I bought a turntable and 10 speakers from a friend of mine. I moved into this little garage house and a little room by 12 by 15. And I bought a turtable and ten speakers from a friend of mine and I had a speaker in all four corners behind the couch, behind the drapes, you know, you name it, wherever it was, I had a speaker there, you know, in the bathroom, in the kitchen. And a typical day for me was to wake up at like 10 o'clock in the morning. I'm already an hour late to work. God, I'd throw my clothes on real fast and shave and get in that car and weave in and out of traffic and break all the traffic laws. I knew by the time I got there, I was going to be fired because you see, I should have worked yesterday. I left all these papers all over my desk and I had papers in my desk drawer. Some of them were months old. They were too old to turn in. If I turned them in, I'd get fired for holding them so long. And if I didn't turn them in you know I was gonna they were gonna find out. I knew it was all gonna happen today and you know it was all over and I'd get to work and I check my desk out everything's the same as yesterday. Man saved again you know and I get a cup of coffee and go back to my desk and shuffle papers and try to look interested and make excuses to my customers why they hadn't got what they had ordered. And I'd use any excuse I could think of, you know, like the class of help we hire nowadays. You know, I'll personally take care of that myself. You can count on it. I'll put it in the mail today for you. You don't hear from me in a couple of days. Why call me again? Let's get this thing straightened out. Or I blame the computer. That's a good one. You know they're using that a lot today but i'm one of the originators of that you know i i was using that computer excuse even before we even had a computer in our and uh and i'd make excuses to my customers and about oh at a respectable time quarter 12 or so i'd go to the bar that was conveniently located right next door to where i worked and i went over there and they served martinis over there. And I like martinis. And they sold double martinis for a dollar during the lunch hour. The regular ones were 75 cents. And I'd say to myself, you know, you're going to have two anyhow. Whoever heard of having one martini? You're going to have to anyhow. So why don't you order the dollar one and you'll save 50 cents? God knows you need the money. And so I'd save 50 and I'd order that dollar one and get to sipping on that and everything's fine. I kind of compare my drink to the guy who's got the $0.75 one right sitting next to me and I say to myself, you know, I don't know who they think they're kidding around here. This is no double. It's a little bit larger than the $ 0.75 cent one. If it were really a double they'd be asking more money for it. You know, I've been around. I know these things so I better have another one and then I'd have another one and then I'd give them and then I'd have another one and then I'd have another one. Then I'd call the office and say, I forgot to tell you, I'm going on a lot of calls this afternoon. Take messages. I'll be back tomorrow morning at nine o'clock. And I'd get in my car and I'd head towards the beach and I'd stop and buy the cheapest bottle of vodka I could find. Whatever was on sale that day is what I got. And I'd go home about two or two thirty in the afternoon and I'm kind of a neat drunk. I hang up my clothes real carefully, you know, so the creases fall properly and put my shoes away and everything. And I'd put my pajamas on. And then I'd sit on the edge of the bed and I'd untap this cheap vodka and take a big, big jolt out of it, you know, several swallows of this stuff. And, and then I would say, ah, nuts, you've done it again today. This cannot continue. You know, you're not the only guy that's ever been divorced. You're not the only guys that have ever been in debt. Why don't you do something about it? All you do is sit around you know you know then i'd put an old record on an old 78 record you know something like billy eckstein singing who can i turn to and then i you know and then i then i get the thinking you know i'd get to talking to myself and i'd say you know so you've been divorced so what you know at least you can catch up financially anyhow you could get a second job. You could at least, you know, get squared away financially. And I'd say, wait a minute. You know, I don't need to get a 2nd job. I'm in sales. And if you're in sales, why, you can practically make any amount of money you want within reason, of course. And all I got to do is just go to work and work hard, you now. By God, that's the answer. That's right. I can, you know and starting tomorrow morning it's all going to be different i'm going to get up tomorrow at six o'clock i'm gonna get down that damn office by seven i'm on a knockout paperwork for a couple hours when that phone starts ringing tomorrow morning at nine o' clock i'm gonna be ready to do business and for the rest of this year i'm wanna devote all my time to work and making money and earning money to pay off all these bills, you know. And jeez what a terrific idea that is! You know it's fantastic! You know so I don't know about you guys but when I make you have these brilliant ideas I you know I got room to celebrate so I have another drink play another record and then I get to thinking you know if I if I apply myself I can sell Monday through Friday on Saturday I can go in the office I do my paperwork you know hell I got a key to the office i can go in there and on Sunday and I can plan my work you know and if you're in sales if you have planned your work and then work your plan you can't miss hey god I just felt terrific you know I knew that was the answer to all my problems God good And so I'd have another drink. And then I'd get to thinking, you know, if you triple your income, which you're going to do, I know, you knows, if you devote the rest of this year just for work, and I'm not even going to drink for the rest OF this year either. Maybe I'll go to a New Year's Eve party and have a few drinks, but this is a year I apply myself. And, you now, if you do that, you know you're gonna triple your income at least. and hell, you'll be out of debt in no time. Then what are you going to do with all the money coming in? One of the things I'm going to do is I'm gonna buy a white Lincoln Continental car, brand new and I'm gunna drive it up to that house where she still lives. And on the way up there, I'll stop at the Hallmark card shop and I'll buy a beautiful card. No cheapy, you know, at least a dollar card. a beautiful card with beautiful sentimental poetry on it you know and over on the left-hand side i'll write thanks for all the good years h you know not henry or hank just h and i'll get a gold-plated key and i've put it in that envelope with that card and i'l i'll wait till like midnight and i drive up so i can be sure and get the parking place right in front of the house and i'll just kind of coast in there you know not make any noise and i tiptoe up on the porch and i i'll put that envelope down the mail chute and then i'll split the next morning she'll wake up and she'll go through her routine and uh and she'd get her mail and then she naturally she'll open up the big envelope first and she will open it up in the key i wonder what that key is and and then she'll read this poetry the sentimental kind you know and tears will just roll down her cheeks it'd just be so beautiful you know so sentimental beautiful you and then she'll look over on the left hand side thanks for all the good years h you know and then She'll look at that key and she'll wonder what that key is she'll look outside in the front of the house she'll see that white lincoln continental brand new shiny gorgeous you know and the key in that card and the arm will be on she'll realize that that lincoln continent is hers then she won't think i'm so bad then she'll be sorry by god and i don't know about you guys but geez i get a terrific kick out of giving those big gifts like that. So I have another drink. And I look up at the clock, and my God, it's almost 11 o'clock. I cannot believe, where has this day gone? It's like five minutes to 11, and I'm almost out of booze. And then I realize, oh my God. The liquor store closes at 11. And so I get up, and then I throw my clothes on over my pajamas, and run two blocks to the liquor store. And that's when I first started jogging about that time. And i had to get there before they guy clothes and a bottle of Smirnoff's. And I always got the, you know, always bought the better brands there in the local area and in my neighborhood. I wouldn't want them to think I was cheap, you Know. And so then I could stroll back to my shack and peace and with peace and contentment and security for the rest of the night. Hadn't been such a bad day after all. I've gotten a lot of, a lot accomplished really. You know, I've got my whole, whole life in front of me starting tomorrow morning at six o'clock. And I'd have dinner, something like a cold hot dog out of the icebox. Then I'd sit on the edge of the bed some more and play some more records and fantasize a little more. You know, I'd start rehearsing the speech I was going to have to give at the banquet because I knew I was gonna be salesman of the year. And somewhere in there I'd pass out. And I'd wake up the next morning, it'd be 10 o'clock, and Jesus, I'd wake up with a start and I'd throw my clothes on real fast and shave and get in that car and weave in and out of traffic and break all the traffic rules and get there because I had to get there because you see, I should have worked yesterday and I left all these papers all over my desk and I had papers in my desk drawer. Some of them were months old, too old to turn in. If I turned them in, I was going to get fired. If I didn't turn them in and I was gonna get fired, it was all gonna happen today. I knew it and I get to work and I check my desk out and everything is the same as yesterday. man so i'd go get a cup of coffee go back to my desk you know and i'd shuffle papers and try to look interested make excuses to my customers and you know blame the file girls and whoever i could think of and computer and all those things you know then at a respectable time i'd goto lunch at the bar that was conveniently located right next door to where i worked and i would go over there and make my big decision of the day over there whether they have the dollar one or the 75 center and then i'd have another one and then i'd Have another one, and then I'd have another one. Then I'd call the office I forgot to tell you I'm going on a lot of calls take messages and uh and then I'd stop and buy a cheap bottle of vodka and get home about 2 or 2 30 and hang up my clothes and put my pajamas on and sit on the edge of the bed untap that cheap vodka and take several swallows full and say well done it again today this cannot continue you know you're not the only guy that's ever been divorced. You're not the only guy that has ever been in debt. Why in the hell don't you do something about it? All you do is sit around. You don't do anything, you know. And then I'd put an old record on the turntable. Something like Billy Eckstein singing, Who Can I Turn To? And then, I'd start talking to myself and I'd have this brilliant idea. I don't have to get a second job. I'm in sales. and starting tomorrow morning I'm going to get up at 6 and I'm gonna get down that damn office and boy starting tomorrow it's all gonna be different and from the rest of this year you know I didn't do that once or twice I did that hundreds of times towards the end of the month the boss would want to know are you in sales here you know and I'd say yeah I'm in sales well how about making a sale and I said don't worry about a thing I'm a fast finisher and I was because I was running scared. You know, I thought he'd fire me so I'd work around the clock. And you know, I always made my quota in that company. At the end of the year, if you make your quota, they give you a plaque, big plaque with your name on it. You know, outstanding salesmanship for the year 19 so-and-so, you know, product knowledge and all that good stuff all over this plaque. For eight drunken years in a row, I won a plaque for outstanding salesmanship, you know. And then I got sober and then I didn't win a plaque for eight years. You see, I lost my motivation. The fear kind of left me there and I was no longer running scared. I think, well, if they fire me, I'm, you know, I'll get another job. And I just, actually what happened is once I got into AA, I got so excited about it, I couldn't think of anything else but AA. I couldn't associate or talk to anybody unless they were in AA and it was really a damn inconvenience to go to work I'll tell you that you know but I used to get down there on time every morning and uh I'd get there and but I found out you know they don't pay you for getting there on time it's it's what you do after you get there on Time is what they pay you for and after two years of sobriety I walked in the office one morning and the guy told me he says you're fired i said fired you've got to be kidding i've been with this company 10 years now i've got an outstanding sales record uh you know i i just don't understand what the what you're driving well you don't have an outstanding sale record lately i'll tell you that and uh and he says all right so i said well i'm going to go see the regional manager i'm not going to take this from you and i went to the regional manager century city office beautiful office you know i went in and talked to him and actually i didn't talk to him i sniveled and cried to him you know I said geez I've been with this company 10 years now and and god I got an outstanding record with the company and now the guy wants to fire me I just don't understand it you know two years ago I completely changed my life I stopped drinking and my wife and I are trying to make it together again the kids and you know and I'm trying to pay my bills and become a citizen in the community again. And now this guy wants to fire me. I just don't understand it, you know. And this regional manager looked at me and said, well, I sure want to congratulate you on changing your lifestyle and I hope you and your wife make it and everything. I really admire you. But he says, I can't do anything about them firing you. They don't want you to work there anymore. And he said, I cannot interfere with that. but he says if you know you claim to be a salesman i'll put you on paid leave of absence for a short period of time and if you if you're the salesman you say you are you can sell yourself to another branch office we got 80 of them so that's what i did and i'm still with the company and uh you know what happened to me is what's happened to a lot of people in aa i've seen it happen to people. They get in AA, and after they're in it for a while, they just get so damn spiritual that they kind of sail off into the blue. And that's what happened to me. I just kind of got heavenly. And I was on a heavenly plane. And my sponsor pointed out to me that some of us just get så heavenly that we just become of no earthly good to anybody. and that's what happened to me you know he also pointed out that it says in the book Alcoholics Anonymous that it's okay to have your head in the clouds but you should keep your feet firmly planted on the ground and there's work ahead and that'S what I've been trying to do ever since and I'm getting a little worried though because the last three or four years I've Been winning plaques again and uh but I got a little bit ahead of myself but about that time I got a call from my ex she said come and get your drunken son he's just like you are and seeing that he had turned 16 years old and he started driving he went right out and got a reckless driving ticket and uh and he was getting into minor scrapes at school nothing really big but just a lot of nickel and dime trouble and just more than she could cope with and he went out and got drunk one night at a party and came home and threw up on the carpet or whatever. And that was the last straw. She couldn't handle it, so she called me and come and get him. You know, he's just like you are. And, you know, I could never say no to her. Whatever she said, you know? She said it. I had to do it, right? And it never occurred to me to argue with her. And so I went and got him, brought him home. He didn't want to come and live with me. In fact, He used to come and visit me occasionally and spend a weekend with me. And, you know, I never knew what to say to him. What do you say to a 16-year-old kid? If I wasn't drinking, why, I would just kind of say things that I thought maybe a caring father would say, you know. Like, you Know, I'm really worried about your grades. With your intelligence, you ought to be getting all A's. I'm very disappointed in your grades and with your physique, my God, you should be playing football. at least you know and with your personality you should be student body president or at least president of your class or something you know I'm really disappointed and he would just you know shrug but if I was drinking which was most of the time then I just kind of slobbered all over him you know. And I told him how much I loved him. All the trouble your mother and I have had over the years has nothing to do with you. We love you. You were a loved child. You were no accident. You were our loved child, I told you. And he just... You know, once I got started, I couldn't stop. And, you know, he used to just sit there and just cringe. He just couldn't listen to that. He couldn't stand to listen to that crap. and finally he'd finally get away you know the next morning i'd wake up and i'd just be full just feel really feel terrible about it yeah you know not that i was drunk i didn't feel terrible about the fact that i were drunk last night i felt terrible because i told my son i loved him and i couldn't stand to look at him even i couldn'T face him in the morning you know and I'd get him in the car and I, you know, try to avoid his glasses and I dump him off at the house. After spending a weekend with me one time he went, he asked his mother he says, you've divorced him is there any kind of legal action I can take? I don't want to go there. So he had to come and live with me and that was the start of a beautiful relationship it's a funny thing, you Know and we got along good we had something in common to work with though you know we had a grievance to work with and when you have a common grievance then that's the start of a beautiful relationship mom had kicked us both out and you know it wasn't very long after that my ex moved in with us too and she came down and checked on her son one day and checked see how he was doing and he was doing okay and then we got to talking you know how that is and one thing led to another and we decided that we were really miserable people but we seem to be more miserable apart than we were together and why don't we try this thing one more time you know our daughter had already split and our son was getting ready to graduate high school and who do we have if we don't have each other and we'll sell that house and And we'll all move in here, and we'll get a fresh start. We won't fight anymore. In fact, she told me, she said, I won't even fight you on your drinking anymore. In fact I'll join you. And I should have been suspicious because all those years that I was married to her, she never drank. That woman is allergic to alcohol. She can't drink. She'd take a drink and gag, you know. I would go to a party, and I'd get a big tall glass and pour a shot of vodka and a lot of 7-Up and a lime and everything else. Here, drink a couple of these. Loosen up. We're supposed to be having fun here. She could never drink. She'd always get sick. And so when she told me she wasn't going to fight me on my drinking anymore, she joined me. I just kind of let that one go over my head. Little did I know that during that two or three year period we were apart, she had started drinking. and uh you know she went down the tubes fast and it talks about that in the book Alcoholics Anonymous you know women sometimes they they can't last as long as some of us guys can and uh so she had crossed that so-called invisible line into alcoholism right away in fact she thinks that she was born an alcoholic that she wasn't an alcoholic before she ever took a drink, like a stick of dynamite waiting to be lit, you know. And as soon as she took that drink, she just, well, just went haywire. And myself, now I had a lot of good years drinking. I had a lot fun. It didn't interfere with my work or anything else. I Had a Lot of Fun Drinking. And, you Know, and went to see all the jazz musicians and just, God, I woke up the next morning ready to go. And, yeah, and I just, I drank a lot a year successfully. But all of a sudden, I became allergic to this stuff. And you know, it's just like penicillin. I took penicilin several times. And the last time I went to the doctor, I had a sore throat and he gave me a shot of penicillar and I wound up in the hospital for eight days. I damn near died. All of a sudden, I had become allergic to penicillon. And then the doctor told me, don't ever take penicilling again, whatever you do, you know. You could die. It could kill you. And, you now, I've never had a bit of trouble with that. I haven't had to join Penicillin Anonymous or anything. In fact, if there was Penicilin Anonymus, I'd have about 35 years right now. Never been tempted to take any of this stuff. So I think I kind of drank myself into alcoholism and she thinks that she was an alcoholic from the first drink and it really don't make all that much difference because we're both alcoholics. and uh but uh now another thing i'm kind of a grouchy guy i'm not all that sociable when i don't drink i just soon sit in the corner and read a book or something watch tv you know just don't bug me don't bother me you know you're free to do any damn thing you want to do just don't ask me for any money or don't asked me for advice and you're absolutely free yeah but you give me one drink and all that changes and i don't care who you are you're the most interesting person i have ever met in my entire life and i'm prepared to sit up with you and hear your life story from day one and i'll sit up all night with you and hear your plans for the future as long as we got booze i'm right there with you my wife on the other hand is a very friendly outgoing person she knows the paper boy by name you know she knows The Girls at the supermarket they she knows their names their husband's names and how many children they got I don't know where she gets all this information but she can boy she is really good at it and uh and she's just an extra friendly person I could go to the same store for 20 years and I didn't know would know I wouldn't know anybody but she just that way but you give her one drink and all that changes and all the pent-up emotions and hostilities of a lifetime come out in that first drink and folks she just gets meaner than hell and uh you know i she wasn't able to make this trip with me and i'm not here to take her inventory, you understand. But seeing that she isn't here, I'm just going to tell you a few of the things that she did. You know, we were all living in that little house and, you know, I'd get home about 2.30 after going to the bar and hang up my clothes and all that and go through that routine and get into my fantasy and here comes my son home at 2 30 in the afternoon you know and I'd ask him you know who the hell do you think you're kidding school don't even get out till three and you're home already by 2 30. You know you've ditched class or you've ditched all day maybe you know. And I'd stand there with my pajamas on with a bottle of vodka in my hand and I would ask him how the hell did you ever expect to amount to anything? You know if you don't apply yourself in this world my son you haven't got a chance. You know, you've got to have a diploma to get any kind of a job. You really worry me. And he'd look at me funny. He always had three or four guys with him and they all looked at me funnily. They kept their surfboards down there and that's some more things we had to trip over on those damn surfboards. And then he'd go off and I'd get into my fantasy a little bit and here comes my wife home from work. god you know i just you know i love everybody when i drink but especially my family god i just love them you know i can't get enough of them and i just overjoyed to see her come home and i'd pour her a drink and we'd have our first drink of the day together and she was always glad to see me and then she'd take a drink and you know i started getting cozy and she started getting standoffish and by the time she finished the first drink it was a battle going on and uh she did all kinds of mean things to me you know and she she did things like throw the christmas tree lights and all out the back door she used to break my old 78 records you know just because they played them more than once you know i'm playing the same record since 1940 and uh and i'd get hung up on a song and i couldn't you know kind of hadn't heard for a week or so you know and i'd play it again and then i'd played one more time and again and again and again sometimes i get hung up on one trumpet toot and i get that needle and just lay it in that groove too you know just like hear it one more tie you know that's it and and she'd she'd go over the phonogram and just take the damn record off the turn turn tail and just break it you know i'd say my god those are priceless 78s you can't replace those you know you can Good, I'll never have to hear that one again. And one time she went over the turntable and took the arm of the phonica and just bent it up. And I couldn't play any more records that night, I'll tell you that. The next morning I got a pipe wrench and a hammer and pliers and I tried to straighten that damn thing out. It was a metal arm. I don't know where she got her strength from. But I couldn' get it straightened out. I had to cost 35 bucks to get that damn thing fixed. And she just, you know, and then she'd never remember any of that. She, you mean, everything in a blackout, you know. You don't remember what you called me last night? You know, I don't know where you learned that kind of language. Certainly didn't get it from me, I'll tell you that. And, well, what did I say? Ah, don't give me that, you know? She didn't remember nothing. And so finally I said, you know this isn't working out at all. And, you know, we tried it, but I allowed you to kick me out of all those other houses. But I moved here first. Therefore, you go this time. We're not even married, remember? You divorced me. And so I'm going to go to my brother's house tonight. And when When I come back, I expect you gone." And so while I was gone to my brother's house, she decided to commit suicide again. She was always committing suicide. She is suicidal. Once she got on the program of AA, she was still suicidal. After she had two or three years of AA she was committing suicide on a regular basis. One day something really happened bad and she was going to commit suicide and uh and then she remembered she was the cookie lady at the meeting so she had a postponement and her sponsor finally told her why don't you knock that crap off you know you're gonna hurt yourself one of these days and uh she got sick in 1981 with cancer lung cancer and she recovered from it and uh he found out that she really wants to live and that's what she's practicing now. She's practicing living, you know. But back in those days, that's the way it used to be. And so while I was gone at my brother's house that night, in a blackout, she decided to commit suicide. But before she did, she went into the closet where all my clothes were hanging and took a knife and just slashed every stitch of clothes. All my shirts and my coats and pants and even took the knife and stabbed my damn shoes. It just made a complete shambles out of everything, and then she took the rags that she had made and put them around the doors and the windows and turned the gas on in the kitchen oven and tried to make the place airtight, see, with that, and she turned the guess on the kitchen up and went to bed. Next morning she woke up nothing happened you know that old place we lived in you know it was half a block from the water and an old old place and the wind used to whistle through those boards hell you could have turned the gas on 10 ovens and never smelled it in there and so she failed again and but she looked around and she saw all these clothes and she could not believe it what she had done. And then I came home, and I couldn't believe it either, I'll tell you that. Then my son came home from school, and he checked things out. He thought we were moving again or something. And there we were, you know. And I guess that was our bottom. I guess That was our Bottom. We, uh, uh... You know, we had... I'm from a good family. My wife's a good family when we got married we had a lot of good ideas and plans and what we were going to do you know we had really a lot good things that we had planned but we just sat around and drank all that goodness out of our lives and from then on it was this bad all the time you know and just because i hit my bottom i didn't stop drinking i just stayed there for quite a while and I had a hundred moments of truth you know I hear these guys from the podium say and then I hit bottom and I don't had a moment of truth and I stopped drinking you know well I had 100 moments of truths but I just kept on drinking I couldn't stop and but before that I had gone to an AA meeting one time it was one of these AA meetings in in California I don' t know if they do it here but uh they give like poker chips and for various lengths of sobriety and the leader that night said anyone here just finish their first 30 days of sobrietty and if you if so please come up to the podium and and receive this 30-day chip and it's like a poker chip and it says 30 days on one side and on the other side easy does it or one day at a time or something and uh so here comes this guy you know and got his poker chip my name's joe blow and i'm an alcoholic i'm just really proud to receive this chip tonight and i know this is a spiritual program that i found god when i walked through the doors of aa and it's the lights in the eyes of the people here that just turn me on and keep me coming back to these meetings and i just love every single person here and just before i came to the meeting tonight i got a call from my boss and he's made me general manager down at the plant and i want to tell you this has been the best 30 days of my entire life you know oh god and uh anyone else just finished their first 30 days and here comes this woman my name is mary smith and i'm an alcoholic and and i'M JUST AWFULLY PROUD TO RECEIVE MY 30-DAY CHIP AND I KNOW THIS IS A SPIRITUAL PROGRAM I FOUND GOD WHEN I WALKED THROUGH THE DOORS OF AA AND AND IT'S THE LIGHTS IN THE EYES OF THE PEOPLE THAT TURN ME ON AND KEEP ME COMING BACK TO THESE MEETINGS I'D LOVE EVERY SINGLE PERSON HERE AND WHEN i see my children, they look at me with respect in their eyes. And my husband is looking at me with renewed interest. And I want to tell you this is a wonderful, wonderful way of life. God bless everyone here. I sat down and thought, oh, God. I never went back. That's it i had it you know i've been a.a you know and uh so uh after this fiasco uh why uh i had uh we had started back to group therapy a little bit before that we had gone group therapy off and on over the years you know trying to find out what was wrong and uh this therapist asked me one time do you really drink as much as she says? And I said, hell yes, I do. I drink a lot, I said. Who wouldn't? Married to a woman like that. I got two rotten kids, really rotten kids. And I got this pressure job. My God, the pressure's going to kill me on this job. So I have a few drinks in the evening. What's the big deal? They've never suffered. They've always had a roof over their head and they never missed a meal or anything. I don't know why in the hell she's getting so excited about it. I drink a little bit, you know. Have you ever thought of quitting? And I said, as a matter of fact, I have. And I did. I thought about it every night, you know, but not tonight, starting tomorrow morning. And he said, have you ever thought of joining AA? And i said thanks, but no thanks. I've already been to AA and so I said it's some kind of a spiritual program or something. I think it's kind of a religious cult and it's okay for them but not for me you know god bless him that's okay and uh but i just it's not for m e but i heard about some stuff i read an article about some stuff called an abuse and i think i'll get some of that because i'm going to quit just to prove to her once and for all that alcohol is not our problem that booze is not our problem you know and so he put me in touch with a doctor and i called the doctor's office in a receptionist said yeah you know you can come and have an appointment but if you want an abuse that don't drink for at least 48 hours prior to coming on the appointment and you know i didn't drink it for 48 hours priority coming to the appointment i'm here for my interviews oh yes the doctor will see you in the moment and the doctor checked my heart and blood pressure and call me into the office and close the door and i thought oh god he closed the door you know something serious and uh he sat me down he started talking to me about alcoholism he starts telling telling me that people with the disease of alcoholism you know they uh they have character defects and they don't cope with life instead of coping they get drunk tonight instead and they wake up the next morning and they not only still got all their problems they got a hangover on top of it and uh and it's a vicious circle and it they never change it just goes on and on and on you know and what he was really describing is my case but i didn't identify you know i didn't know and i didn' want to hear i didn''t appreciate that lecture i'll tell you that i just wanted some anabuse and he said you know if what you say is true you haven't had a drink in 48 hours you don't need an abuse you know you're over the hump you know you need never take another drink as long as you live and i thought jesus you know i want to quit but i wasn't quite prepared to quit that long you know and uh i just wanted to prove something like jesus the rest of my life and then he went on and on and he pulled a book out from his bookcase and bookshelf and start reading to me about how people try to control and enjoy their drinking by switching from scotch to brandy and and i know now what he read to me was a portion of chapter three and uh and he just would not stop and i finally said well if you're not going to give me an abuse then i guess i better go how much do i owe you and he said i can see i'm not making much of an impression on you but i'm going to tell you something due to the nature of your appointment here he said i'm going to tell you something i wouldn't tell my other patients but i happen to know a little bit about alcoholism you see my wife's an alcoholic and we've tried everything we've pride rest homes and sanitariums and and and abuse and psychiatry and you name it we've tried it nothing nothing worked for you know but she's sober right now she goes to aa and that's what i recommend that you do and promise me that when you leave here today that you'll go to the manhattan beach clubhouse and buy the book alcoholics anonymous and there'll be no charge for this appointment and that's the only thing that guy said that day didn't impress me at all and uh so i i went up and bought the book and i threw it on my dresser and had another drink and thought what a crazy doctor you know wouldn't even give me any antibiotics i don't have any cooperation anything i want to do you know okay and uh and uh after that is when we had this fiasco and my wife had been with me and heard that doctor say all that stuff she went back to the doctor and asked kim if he thought she was an alcoholic and he said he didn't know for sure but why didn't she go to some meetings with his wife she'd be happy to take her And so she came home that evening and she said, I'm going to go to AA with the doctor's wife. And I said, oh God, what now? There's always something, you know, with you. There's Always Something With You. You know, it's true you shouldn't drink. Some of us can and some of us cannot. You know? You're just one of those people that can't drink, but you don't need to go AA for God's sake. And I says, what makes you think that the doctor'S wife is going to drive down from Palos Verdes in her Cadillac and pick you up in this dump we live in. Well, I don't know. I spoke with her this afternoon and she said she's going to come by about a quarter to eight. She's not coming in. She's just going to toot the horn. I said, good. I don' t want her coming in and just remember what the name of this organization is. It's Alcoholics Anonymous. That means no names. Don't give them my name whatever you do. We're not married. Remember, you don't have a husband. But this I got to see, anyhow. So about a quarter to eight, this Cadillac drove up in front of this dump we lived in, tooted the horn, and off she went to a meeting. She started going to the meetings with the doctor's wife. And the first thing that they told her in AA, the very first night that she went, the first things they told here was that it wasn't her fault that I drank. God, they could have started her off with something else besides that. I just about had her half convinced that it was her fault. But they said, no, don't carry that guilt around with you. You cannot make anybody drink. You don't have that kind of power to make anybody drink if they don't want to drink. You know, don's kid yourself. Don't carry the guilt around. And you can't make him quit either. Don't try. Don't pour his booze down the sink. He'll just go buy another fifth. Just let the SOB drink himself to death if that's what he wants to do. it's his life. And she kind of liked the ring of that, you know. And they told her that if she thought that she had a trouble, a little trouble with alcohol, maybe she better come to these meetings and work on her problem and just let me go. And that's what she did. And to be a good guy every once in a while, I'd go to a meeting with her. And I heard some good speakers. You know, I liked the speakers, and I was a little bit too timid to talk to them. But I would have liked to have called them up and talked to them and maybe made an appointment and go to some bar somewhere and have a few drinks and talk the situation over. And I couldn't get it. I didn't understand that they didn't drink. But most of the meetings that we went to were these small meetings where eight or ten people sit around a table and share. but i looked at it had a funny perspective of it you know and i thought the first guy told a lie and then the next guy they tried to top top him all the way around you know and it just bothered me i hated the damn meetings you know and we and then we all stood up and held hands and said the lord's prayer god how corny can you get and uh and then you know you think you go home then hell no there's a meeting that starts immediately after the meeting ends and another meeting starts right then and that's when these ladies used to come to me you know with their fangs showing you know and their claws you know like little miniature draculas you know looking for new blood him god and they'd say are you lose husband and i'd say yeah i'm lou's husband well are you an alcoholic too and i say no i'm not an alcoholic two i'm a i'ma visitor here she's one work on her but i'm not you know and uh i finally told her i said this is it i've gone to my last meeting i can't stand these meetings and uh but i do know i'm an alcoholic i've i've learned that and uh I'm gonna quit drinking and so i i did i quit drinking a little bit before thanksgiving and i stayed sober clear through christmas you know a little over a month there and uh that saturday night after christmas i uh my wife went to a meeting and i stay at home and i took a little mini inventory of myself and i said jesus you haven't drank since before thanksgiving clear through christmus that proves you're not an alcoholic so I went and bought a half pint of vodka and uh and I no sooner got it back to the place I drank it what the hell did I buy a half point for I went got a fifth I went get another fifth I drank all Saturday night and all day Sunday and I closed the bar two o'clock in the morning and woke up the next morning ten o' clock god I'm already an hour late to work and I threw my clothes on and shaved and weaved in and out of traffic and i got there and made a beeline to my desk checked everything out everything was the same you know safe again and and uh i went over to the bar a little early that day because i was sick you know i hadn't drank for over a month and i poured all this alcohol into my system and god i was sick and so i ordered a glass of medicine you know bloody mary that's not really a social drink at all it's just you know get well drink and uh so this bartender got a big tall glass he put ice in it and put a shot of vodka and tomato juice and Worcestershire sauce and Tabasco. And he squeezed the lime in it, and he stirred it and Put some salt in thought he'd never get the damn thing made. Yeah. And I finally took the glass and I drank it straight down and I slurped it all over myself. Oh, nuts. And, uh, and I said, make me another one. And then I went to the restroom and I cleaned the tomato juice off my tie and stuff and got cleaned up a little. I came back and he said, did you want another Bloody Mary or did you want a martini? And I said, I'll just skip it. And I went over to the coffee shop section of this bar and I had a sandwich and a glass of milk and I haven't had a drink since. And, you know, that's all days, you know, to quit. I hadn't even thought about it the night before. And I didn't know that I had quit. I didn'T know that was my last drink. It has been so far. And you know I've often thought Jesus, if I would have known that was going to be my last drink I sure as hell wouldn't have ordered a Bloody Mary I'll tell you that You know, I would have ordered like something fancy like a double martini on an ice glass or a brandy snifter or something, you know, and I could have drank it straight down and then smashed that glass on the floor and stomped out of the place triumphant over alcohol But I didn't know it I didn' t know I had taken my last train A couple of weeks went by before I realized you know i was in some kind of a twilight zone or something i don't know but i woke up to the fact after two weeks or so that i hadn't had a drink and then anger set in you know you know i had this rotten wife two of the worst kids you could possibly imagine it's pressure job i owed all this money it was all past due every time the phone rang i jumped clear across the room if someone knocked on the door i you know i knew it was a police i you know i i didn't know what i did but i knew i was guilty i was ready to go yeah and now i can't even drink now they've taken that away from me what am i gonna do with the rest of my life nothing that's what i'm gonna do there's nothing to do if you don't drink you can't enjoy life at all ever i knew that. And I, but I was prepared to, prepared to do it, you know. Hell, you can't go to a decent restaurant ever. What's the first thing they ask you if you go to an ice restaurant? Would you like a cocktail before dinner? And you can say to them, well, yeah, I'd like one, but you see, I'm an alcohol, you now, I've got this, I have got this disease. And it's of a two-fold nature. It's an allergy of the body and an obsession of the mind. And if I even take one drink, I can't predict my behavior. If it wasn't for that, I'd sure have one. You know, I used to think you had to explain all that to people. In fact, I spent a good part of my day, every single day, explaining things to people that didn't want to hear the explanation. If I was standing on a street corner and somebody walked up, I'd start explaining what I was doing there. I just had that need to explain stuff to people. And so, never go to a decent restaurant ever again. I thought, well, I'm stuck at Denny's Coffee Shop for the rest of my life, you know. And, you now, almost every single thing, you kno, almost every, in fact, every single things that I knew for sure has turned out to be wrong. You know, I went to a nice restaurant just recently and the waitress came up and said, would you like a cocktail before dinner? And I said, no thanks. And you know, it didn't even phase her. She just, she just went over to the next table and asked them and they did. They always do. I always check and they always do. And I'm the only guy, I'm not the only one. I'm the only man in the whole place not drinking, you know. It's all right. I've had my share, I guess you know but just to show you how sick I am you know sometimes that looks kind of attractive to me and I and I realize that I'm a real alcoholic after all these years that sometimes a drink even looks attractive to me you know and so I've decided I'm going to leave my body to science you know. And when I die they can open me up and take a look at what a real alcoholic looks like from the inside. You know and they get my organs they're going to put them you know, and see solutions and they finally get my brain they're going to drop it down in this alcoholic solution and my brain's going to say ah but until then I hope I don't have to take a drink but that's the cruelest thing I ever learned in my life That's the cruelest lesson I've had to learn in my entire life. They don't give a damn if you drink out there or not. And when I came to AA, that was one of the drawbacks, one of my, one of things that I, you know, I can't really join this organization, you now. What are they going to say when they find out I don't drink? Well, I'm here to tell you guys, they don't get a damn. They don' t give a dam if you drank out there. And I wish they cared one way or the other. it's their indifference that really bothers me and uh you know i'll bring you up to date my my wife and i are both sober 14 a little over 14 years and you know I'm sober longer than she is and how come you know how can that possibly be she went to AA before me well she didn't hear the part about the pills and uh and uh where I come from you're not sober if you're taking pills and smoking those funny cigarettes. And so I took my last drink on December the 29th, 1969, and she flushed her pills down the toilet on January the 1st, 1970, and changed her sobriety date. And if you'll notice, there's a whole year difference. And I have the sobriety in my family. And when I say coffee, she's got to get it because the newcomer's got to get right. And our son, he used to look at me so funny back in those days. It turned out that he was stoned out of his gourd seems like he had some kind of a problem with alcohol too and pills and LSD and marijuana and you name it he had trouble with and I'll be damned if he didn't turn himself into AA when he was 21 and next month he'll be taking on an 11 year cake and uh and our daughter sends you greetings from al-anon and we're an a.a family and we weren't any kind of a family 14 years ago and i don't want to intimate that we're the best family on the block today you know we got plenty of problems you know but we've all got programs if they would just work their damn programs right everything it'd be wonderful but they got their own sponsors and they read the book a little differently than i do and so i guess i'm just gonna have to let them get well at their own pace and uh my son's a very successful young businessman in the san fernando valley and uh you know he makes twice as much money than i did and i resent that you know he never had to suffer near as long as i did and uh he uh he's a speaker in aa and he spoke the young young people's meeting in palm springs here a few years ago and uh it's the first time i ever saw him dressed up as a man you know he bought himself a nice looking suit had his hair styled had a good looking shirt and tie and nice looking shoes and god he really looked good standing up there at the podium and there was like 1,200 people or 1,800 people or something sitting out there in that audience and my wife and I were out there and he got up at the podium and he said my name is Matt Johnson I'm an alcoholic and I also use drugs and he says I'm the son of a drunken mother and a dranken father and my life my wife and I looked at each other and just burst into tears we were just so damn proud You know, I'm dealing with a lot of anger and a lot of problems. And I haven't solved them all, but I've met a lot of people today, good-looking people, a lot. And even with all my problems and all my troubles, I wouldn't trade places with any of you. Fourteen years ago, I'd have traded places with anybody. And I've got a pretty good life going today. And I'm just about finished. I'm going to tell you a couple of things before I sit down. And you'll get your messages tomorrow at the 2 o'clock meeting and the 8 o' clock meeting. But all I can tell you is that when I see my children now, they look at me with respect in their eyes. And I'm proud to stand up here tonight and say that my wife and I are a couple once again. And I know that this is a spiritual program. And that I found God when I walked through the door. And you know, it's the lights in the eyes of the people that keep me coming back. Thank you very much. Thank you. Well, it would seem to me if you don't take something home from this meeting it's because you didn't bring anything to take it home in. If there are no other announcements, Jim says all the other meetings will be in this other conference room over here. This is the only meeting of this conference that will be held in this room. If we have no further announcements, we'd like to close this meeting by getting corny. Let's hold hands and pray together a large prayer. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever. Amen.